Fernweh

WHO: Merlan O'Keefe ( darksmokerising ) and Bucky Barnes ( ostavil )
WHEN: [Backdated to December 2021]
WHAT: Bucky Gets A Christmas Present
WHERE: Gazin, The Forge
WARNINGS: Fluff?


( Read more... )

WHO: You
WHEN: October/November
WHAT: It’s that time of year, Fall is in the air, the trees are changing, and Gazin is celebrating Harvest! Below you will find celebrations and prompts for your consideration.
WHERE: Gazin
WARNINGS: None
( Read more... )

WHO: Kassandra
WHEN: September
WHAT: Being well-adjusted and normal and not at all a proto-assassin
WHERE: Above Gazin
WARNINGS: She's not terribly well adjusted but none so far


All over Town - OPEN


Kassandra had gotten used to having purpose. That purpose might not have been the pursuit of glory, whatever people thought about her, but it was important to her. She'd wanted to find her family, to have somewhere to belong for the first time since she was forced from Sparta. Now that purpose was as barren and scorched as the battlefield of Plataia, and even if she could determine a way to return to Greece, there would be little left for her there. She could resume her meandering voyages, making her way around the world looking for whoever would pay her to work for them, but it would be empty without the family she'd dreamed of.

But here, she doesn't even have her friends, or her reputation. She's found some people occasionally to work for, taking on bandits or running errands and playing messenger here and there. Times aren't as hard as they'd been on Kephallonia, but they're not good, either.

With less work, and a lot less warfare, she needs to find some ways to keep up with her less obvious skills. So on some days -- today being one of them -- instead of walking around Gazin on the streets and paths, she scales the wall of a building and does her best to move above the streets. The climbing is still easy: run and leap, grabbing onto a windowframe, and haul herself upwards. Some buildings a little more difficult, and she has to climb using gaps in woodwork or masonry as footholds. Then, it's a pause to assess her surroundings, and the rooftops are hers. She moves confidently, sure that most of the people below her will never look up to see her.

But anyone who does, might see her leap from one rooftop to another, or lightly balancing along a rope or plank of wood that runs between two buildings. When the gap is too far to jump, she shimmies down, or drops over the edge, and darts across the intervening street before scaling the next building again. It's freer up there, and she's far less likely to run into people. It's comfortable, in a way the crowded marketplace isn't.


The Marketplace - OPEN


It doesn't help, being without Ikaros. He'd been alongside her, even on Kephallonia when she'd been barely able to eat when work was lean. She doesn't miss him quite as much as she did when she first arrived here, but the loss of his companionship still hurts. And, more practically, she still feels incomplete without the ability to reach up through his vision into the world around her. So while she's on the rooftops, Kassandra makes her way to the tallest building overlooking the marketplace, and once she's climbed it, she perches on the edge of the rooftop and watches the scene below her. There's information to be found in the movements of the crowds, and in the way individual people go from one place to another, about their daily business, or perhaps, some of them, preparing for a special event, like the man who visits a jeweler and a tailor and then engages in a long discussion with a man who trades in wine.

She tells herself she's scouting, looking for trouble, but she knows she's really just making up for missing her eagle. And eventually, Kassandra knows she has to come down, so she moves around the edges of her rooftop, searching until she finds what she needs: a cart loaded with straw, waiting to be hauled away by a pair of horses. Kassandra springs from the roof, turning the leap into an elegant dive with a half-somersault at the end so she lands on her back in the straw.

To anyone watching, it might seem reckless, dangerous. But Kassandra emerges from the cart a moment later, springing out and beginning to brush straw from her clothing. She assumes nobody noticed her, but if someone did, they'll have a moment to approach her as she picks pieces of straw out of her braid.

WHO: Annie and YOU
WHEN: June
WHAT: Annie, having lunch and attempting to be sociable.
WHERE: Gazin's marketplace
WARNINGS: TBA

---

People can get used to anything. They build routines. Every boat Annie's served on has had its rhythms , every arena she's studied has had its patterns. On a boat, routines save lives: in the arena, patterns can be fatal. It all just depends.

So far, Annie has been thinking of this place as a cross between arena and boat. More boat, now. She's not exactly expecting her fellow... Well. They aren't tributes. Or fellow citizens. The people around her. She's not expecting them to ambush her.

(She's still keeping the possibility in mind, of course. She's not an idiot.)

All of which goes a ways to explaining how Annie has felt comfortable enough, or brave enough, to do this: have lunch, in the marketplace, after a morning of talking to perfect strangers.

She'd done that before Finnick arrived. She's capable of it. Even she can admit that. But he's the more sociable one, the one with the smooth tongue and the charm. It's been easier to let him do the talking, particularly when selling the fish they've been catching every day. But today their little rented boat is in for repair, and Finnick had been offered a spot on another fisherman's boat for a few hours. The relief Annie had felt had been a sharp reminder that, if they are staying for the foreseeable future in this weird place, the pair need more than a small room.

So Annie has been talking to people about rent. And renting living quarters. Or a small house. Or at least two rooms. Something that's not a small room in an inn. And she'd taken notes on a wax tablet and she'd been productive and-

It's exhausting.

But she's still on something like a roll, so she grabbed a pastry from a stall in the market-place, took a seat at one of the public tables and started to eat. She's still watchful, still cautious, but she's making an effort to be somewhat normal.

And if anyone walks over with food of their own, Annie will offer a smile and a quiet, "You're welcome to sit, you know."

WHO: Bucky + OPEN
WHEN: June
WHAT: Missing Steve so, you know, going to the inn and pretending to get drunk because he actually can't.
WHERE: The inn.
WARNINGS: TBA

( *** )

WHO: Finnick Odair + Bucky Barnes / Finnick Odair + Daenerys Targaryen
WHEN: May
WHAT: Catching up with some acquaintances
WHERE: The inn and the road into town.
WARNINGS: Probable trauma/ptsd related trigger-happy twitchiness all around.


The Inn - Bucky

Finnick owes the fact that he got by in those first few days in the wilderness to a small number of people he met. He also knows that Annie owes something to the people she'd met when she'd arrived, too, and the two of them had one benefactor in common: Bucky, who'd lent Finnick a knife and given him supplies and gold, and bought Annie food and boots. The man had said that he'd wanted to help out someone who reminded him of himself, and that was intriguing enough to stick in Finnick's mind and make him want to know what had prompted it.

Finnick thinks he knows what Bucky had meant. To Finnick, it was the traits he'd recognize in a fellow victor. A wariness, a mistrust of the world around them and the way they looked for danger in every situation, no matter how seemingly mundane. The arena never really left the victors, but it seems that isn't as unique to victors as Finnick had once thought.

So he's been keeping an eye out for the other man at the inn, and on the evening when he sees him there, Finnick wanders across to the other man's table.

"Hey."

He looks a very different man to the wild-eyed survivor of the arena Bucky had first met: his clothes fit, his visible wounds are healed save for the unevenness in his skin tone on his face left by the chemical burns where the scars haven't yet faded. Perhaps the biggest change though is his demeanour: friendly, approachable, the sort of charismatic Finnick long ago learned to be for the world around him.

"Thought I'd give you this back," he says, offering up the knife Bucky had lent him, hilt-first.



On the Way into Gazin - Daenerys

Finnick and Annie have been starting to develop a plan.  Between them, they're working on being able to fish enough to earn enough money to hire a boat. Finnick's lived off his fame and his winnings all his adult life, but here neither of those seems to mean anything, and Finnick and Annie are going to need to make some money. What she earned from selling her jewelry and what Bucky gave Finnick isn't going to last forever.

But he's been working on developing a trading relationship with one of the fishmongers, and when they can hire a boat, they should be able to really support themselves, in the way that Finnick's never had to do before.

He's been spending a lot of time at the river, installing and refining fish traps and working out the best fishing spots along the river.

Today, he's on his way back to the village with a broken trap in one hand; it looks like a long, bulbous basket that's been smashed on one end. Annoying, because it let the fish out, but possibly useful to help them build better traps.

As he's approaching Gazin, he sees a familiar figure ahead of him: a slight woman with hair so blonde it's almost white. He remembers her, and her name. So he smiles as he gets closer.

"Hello, Daenerys."

WHO: Merlan, open

WHEN: April 20th-30th

WHAT: Merlan being Merlan, selling stuff and getting into skirmishes

WHERE: Around Gazin, The Forge

WARNINGS: Swearing, violence, gross wounds?
 

( Read more... )

WHO: Steve Rogers; OTA
WHEN: April 20th-30th
WHAT: Trying to keep busy
WHERE: Around Gazin
WARNINGS: Will update

---

He's been struggling the last few weeks, trying to figure out a way he can be useful beyond helping all the older folks around town with their routines and lives. Steve wanted a little peace, but it turns out that too much of a little thing can eventually be too much.

On days where he's feeling a bit down, one can find him jogging up and down the dirt roads. Sitting at one of the few watering holes around the area and then at the homestead where he's worked his way to owning a section of land with an old run-down hunter's cabin that needs some work by a lake that he felt his best friend would appreciate.

But on the other days when Steve is feeling good, he's in Gazin, gathering up supplies and food and spending his nights at the Inn after the sun goes down and working is more of a challenge. The weather finally was turning warmer during the days but with being so close to the mountains, the nights were still chilly.

WHO: Annie Cresta
WHEN: 28th February, first part of March
WHAT: Arrival
WHERE: Gazin
WARNINGS: Anxiety attack in Arrival section + general anxious thinking in other threads. Will add if anything more shows up.
NOTES: Feel free to add a wildcard situation if you want! Annie will be scoping out Gazin a lot.

---

( ARRIVAL | LOCKED )

( LATER | OTA )

WHO: Finnick Odair + OPEN
WHEN: Late February
WHAT: Arriving, bolting for the woods, then spying and fishing
WHERE: In the woods, by the river, and around but not in Gazin. You can find him anywhere mentioned in the prompts!
WARNINGS: Arrival prompt has self-harm and blood. Probable trauma/ptsd related trigger-happy twitchiness all around.
NOTES: On arrival, Finnick is wearing just a pair of shorts and a shirt tied around a knife wound on his leg. In all prompts, his face, neck, arms, and legs are covered in scabs or scars from chemical burns.


BEFORE

( Previously, in the Quarter Quell arena... )


ARRIVAL

Finnick doesn't trust the signs. He doesn't trust the road. He certainly doesn't trust the thought of a settlement, because he's seen what an abandoned city in an arena can do. How easy it is to trap. He spends a few moments staring down the road, then a few more staring into the distance, trying to work out what's just happened.

Then, he  draws a knife from his belt, studies the blade for a moment, then presses the point to the skin of his left forearm. He can't actually feel where the tracker is, but it feels like he can feel it. He remembers exactly where they put it. So he presses the blade of the knife into his skin, then stabs, digs, gritting his teeth against the pain as he twists the blade until it finds the repulsive thing and tears it out. He throws it as far as he can, then unties the shirt that's tied around his thigh and tears at the fabric until a strip comes off. It's awkward, bandaging his own arm, but he does it, with nothing more than a hiss of breath through his teeth to show the pain. He wraps his leg back up, sheathes the knife, and takes one trident in each hand as he strikes out into the trees.

If the most important thing was getting rid of the tracker, it quickly becomes apparent that the second thing has to be warmth. Coming from District 4, he feels the cold at the best of times, and he'd been in the heat of the jungle wearing nothing more than his undershorts and the shirt-bandage on his leg. Now, wherever he is, he's freezing. Fire is a risk, the smoke can draw enemies, and his tribute and her allies had killed a girl just last year because she lit a fire. But if it comes down to it, he has a better chance fighting enemies than he does fighting the cold. So he gets as far from the road as he can before the chill starts seeping in, then he starts collecting wood, and soon he's warming himself by a fire and trying to work out what is going on.

He knows it's making enough smoke to draw attention, but he also knows how many tributes die from the elements every year. He'll take the fire over the cold.


LATER

They hadn't had much in the arena, but they'd had more than this. They'd had the spile, and Beetee's wire, and the possibility of help from outside. Wherever this place is, he doesn't have anything more than he'd had on him: two tridents, three knives, the gold bangle, and what was left of his uniform. He needs more supplies, and he needs to understand. So Finnick carefully strikes out towards the city, not on the road, but along it, keeping to cover as best he can. When he reaches a river he stops, drinks a little from the water, but focuses on fishing, because he has to eat.

Once he's done with the river, he continues towards town. Not that he goes into the city, but he does climb a tree not far from the gate (trying to ignore how much that makes his arm and leg hurt) and watch the people coming and going, green eyes narrowed as he studies them.

It makes no sense.

For the next few days, anyone in the area around Gazin might see signs of Finnick's whereabouts: smoke from a campfire, a careful shadow that's not quite moving well enough to avoid being seen not far off the road. Maybe even the feeling that somebody's watching you.

Somebody probably is.

Who: Merlan and YOU
What: Feb. Catchall
Where: Gazin, Merlan's Clearing
When: All of Feb.
Warnings: Language, maybe.

( Read more... )

WHO: Steve Rogers, Open
WHEN: Last week of January
WHAT: Random stuff
WHERE: Around Gazin
WARNINGS: None

Life in Gazin has been interesting for Steve since arriving a few weeks prior and he can't seem to find it all amusing that whatever power is in charge of transporting him to all these different alternate worlds and realms in all sorts of different eras of time. If anyone should feel like a yo-yo personified, he'd enthusiastically raise his hand.

When he's not checking in and bugging his best friend, Steve is trying to find ways of passing the time. He can't really say he has much experience in these times, but it looks pretty basic.

Steve is a good guy, all in all, so he offers his assistance whenever he notices someone needs help and he manages to get himself a job helping out on an elderly couple on their farm by cutting wood and fixing things around the several acre lot. He feeds the livestock, which turns out to be the most dangerous job where it comes to dodging the wrath of a black bull he has taken to calling Fury.

At the end of most days, he trudges back to the inn and looks for some decent company in the dining room. He's still unsure of the purpose he has here but Steve is, if anything, a very patient guy.